Tillerson’s message to NATO: Show Trump the money

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.

Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.

So far, they’re not getting much.

Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.

But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.

Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.

NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.

“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.

Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”

Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.

The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable.

“Our security environment is getting … more difficult,” the official said. “It’s important for allies to do this for their own security. It’s not like this is a favor to the United States. The purpose of this commitment, is to improve the security for all of us in the transatlantic region. So the idea is for the allies to honor their commitments. We are demonstrating – the president and the secretary — demonstrating that we are doing more than our share.”

Relations between the White House and key European allies have been tense at best.

The official added: “The secretary will make the point that it is not sustainable for the United States to maintain a disproportionate share of this burden. He’ll make that point very clear.”

Trump administration officials have tried to emphasize their view of NATO’s importance, effectively walking back on comments by Trump during his campaign when he called the alliance “obsolete.” But relations between the White House and key European allies have been tense at best.

A meeting at the White House earlier this month between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was notable mainly for its awkwardness and seemed to do little to close the gulf that has emerged between the longtime allies since Trump’s election.

j

In Germany Rex is a name for a dog. Appropriate.
Even low income people in Germany are well educated, the majority of the people know that we don’t need more military spendings, we need NO military spending at all. Germany can’t be defended in a conventional war nowadays, straight and simple. So why should we need NATO? Get your troops out of here, save a truckload of money and stop barking.

Posted on 3/29/17 | 3:36 PM CEST

Douglas Jensberg

Will Tillerson present each foreign minister with a personal invoice for their country’s arrears?

Posted on 3/29/17 | 3:46 PM CEST

Ian

18 hours ago
And if they cant meet the spending demand then what? They are no longer our allies? If I was Merkel, I would demand Ramstein AFB shutdown and get give the US 24 hours to get all its troops out. Call trump’s bluff. People fail to understand the US wants our military bases around the world more than the world actually wants us.

Posted on 3/29/17 | 3:52 PM CEST

Patti

Time for US allies to hand the US a bill for the $billions being spent dealing with the almighty global mess the US invasion of Iraq is costing the world.

As for the Ukraine… it is as corrupt as Russia. They deserve each other. We should stay out of it.

Posted on 3/29/17 | 4:04 PM CEST

Michael

Deel

Putin-bot “j” comments here: “we need NO military spending at all. Germany can’t be defended in a conventional war nowadays, straight and simple. So why should we need NATO? Get your troops out of here, save a truckload of money.”

The Party thanks you, Comrade.

Posted on 3/29/17 | 7:49 PM CEST

ab

@Deel
If it was Putin’s bot it would be an optimistic scenario.
I’m afraid it may be a real German. In Germany a lot of people love Russia but even more hate the USA.

But their advice may not be so bad. If USA moved their troops from Germany to Vysehrad countries, Romania and Baltic Countries it would make Europe a lot safer with similar or even lower cost for NATO than today. Those countries would welcome US Army with open hands while Germans would also be happy – no US soldiers would remind them of Trump they hate so much and moreover they could concentrate on their beloved immigrants,

Posted on 3/30/17 | 1:28 AM CEST

Anne

@ab
Trump wants Germany to defend Europe (in place of the US) and is insisting it doubles its military expenditure and, by default, the size of its army. So instead of US bases in Poland, Trump will be promoting German bases. America meanwhile will withdraw to the other side of the Atlantic.

With the US withdrawal, Poland will rely much more heavily on the European arm of NATO and so should foster friendly relationships with those allies.
One problem with relying on the US is that most American voters can’t even find Poland on the map — so American politicians could prove whimsical in their support.

Posted on 3/30/17 | 7:19 PM CEST

ab

@Anne
It may happen that USA may conclude that Europe is unimportant for them, isolationists will prevail and USA will abondon Europe.
But as history shows it means that Germany and Russia will immediately try to divide Europe between themselves which will result in a big mess like always before (WWI, WWII) and USA will probably have to get involved to clean that mess again – like before.
So defending Europe by Germany without US presence what you stipulate is a nonsense in view for example of deals with Russia that Germany is promoting despite sanctions – Nordstream, Nordstream 2, granting control over Opal pipeline to Gazprom even against own EU regulations, sales of military equipment to Russia, etc.
So just imagine what kind of cooperation with Russia Germany will promote while pressure for sanctions will ease and there will be no more US military bases in Germany – as NATO as you should remember was designed in order to: keep Americans in, Russians out, and Germans – down.